When Will Daylight Saving Time End? Sunrise, Sunset Fall Back

The sun has been setting later and later each day and has been rising later each morning. Even if the weather stays warm through the fall, the shorter and shorter days can’t be ignored. In New York, the sun is setting about one to two minutes earlier each night, by Halloween sun set will happen at 5:53 p.m. EDT. Long gone are the days of equal amount of sunlight and night time.

This happens because as the Earth orbits the sun, in the winter months in the Northern Hemisphere, the North Pole is tilted away from the sun. During the summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, the North Pole is tilted toward the sun, according to NASA.

In the spring the clocks went ahead an hour so that an hour of daylight moves from the early morning to night time, essentially this makes the daylight hours fall during the times that most people are awake. In the fall we set the clocks back to return to the standard time. When we do this we end up with the sun rising earlier in the morning and setting earlier in the afternoon than it was before.

When is daylight saving time this year?

We set the clocks back every year at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of November, according to NASA. This year that means when the clock strikes 1:59 a.m. on Sunday Nov. 5, a minute later it’ll be 1 a.m. again because the clock will roll back. We already set the clocks ahead on the second Sunday in March of this year. The exception for this is Hawaii and Arizona, the two states that don’t observe Daylight Saving.

Benjamin Franklin is credited with coming up with the idea to make the days longer by adjusting the clock. It was meant to make the most of the daylight hours and it was officially signed into law in 1966 by President Lyndon Johnson.

Luckily, most people don’t have to remember to change their alarm clocks anymore because your cell phone should automatically change the time when it happens. But remember your appliances and any other manual clocks you have around the house probably won’t automatically change. So you should change them on Sunday the 5 unless you want to end up late for work Monday.

If you’re not sure whether the clock on your computer or radio has changed time or not you can check the Department of Commerce’s website for guidance. There you’ll also find a FAQ page with information about Daylight Saving Time.

There have been some claims that Daylight Saving can increase the risk of car accidents due to the lost hour of sleep in the spring. There have been multiple studies done on this, many of which link driving while sleepy, or after drinking.